


Commando Raid

by Lenny9987



Series: Lenny's Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [56]
Category: Outlander (TV)
Genre: Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 06:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17617670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenny9987/pseuds/Lenny9987
Summary: Prompt: Imagine Claire describing WW2 to Jamie and Jamie watching footage from the time?





	Commando Raid

“What was it like in yer time?” Jamie asked Claire as he sat at the edge of the bed removing his boots and stockings. 

“Could you be more specific?” Claire asked with a laugh as she propped her head up on her elbow, watching him as she lay in bed, waiting for him to come and warm it with her. 

“Ye spoke earlier when ye had yer… episode watchin’ me and Murtagh teachin’ the men to load and shoot,” he clarified. “Ye said about the soldiers ye kent and the attack on the road… It was plain on yer face the whole incident was terrifyin’ and awful—and I dinna want to be puttin’ ye in mind of  _ that _ again,” he said hastily, turning round quickly to be sure he hadn’t upset her. The laugh had gone from her features and there was a sadness in her eyes, but not as much of the terror that had been there earlier. “Ye’ve seen a different sort of war and I’m… I cannae help but be curious.” 

“Morbid curiosity,” Claire muttered flopping onto her back and staring up at the slanted ceiling. 

“If ye dinna wish to tell me…” Jamie said apologetically, standing to unbutton his waistcoat and untie his stock. “Forget I asked.”

“I could forget that… not what it’s like, though. I… I didn’t get to see them during their basic training—I had formal training of my own when I became a nurse,” Claire began, her voice quiet. “But when I was deployed to the front, I could watch them going through their drills—at least, when I was on missions like the one I told you about… before.”

“Do ye… that is… how did they fight on the battlefield?” Jamie asked. He was down to his shirt now, folding his clothes and setting them aside for the following morning. “What were the tactics, d’ye ken?”

Claire turned her head on the pillow to watch him, confused. “Wha… why?”

“It’s only… if there’s somethin’ in how they do things then that I could teach the men here and now,” Jamie explained, slipping beneath the sheets and sliding against Claire, “if there’s somethin’ we could use that could give us the advantage—even somethin’ small—it could make a difference.”

Claire sighed and turned into him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. She could smell the faint scent of sweat that clung to his hair mingling with that of the soap he’d used to wash his face, neck, and behind his ears. 

“I think the weapons were too different. They had repeating rifles and machine guns,” Claire told him, the memories of the wounds each device caused rising to the surface and bringing a foul taste to her mouth. “Bombs were dropped from the skies or mortars fired from a much greater distance than canon balls can reach. They couldn’t camp anywhere near as close to the enemy as we can now and still sleep safe. I remember men saying they could barely see the men they shot at, which meant they hadn’t seen who it was that had shot and hit them.”

She felt Jamie shudder and he shifted to slip his arm around her. 

“Aye, there’s somethin’ about facin’ yer enemy and gettin’ good and close before ye try to kill each other that makes ye feel… I dinna ken how to describe it. Ye remember each man, always, after a battle. I wouldna say that they haunt ye, exactly—though some of that depends on how it went between ye, how it was they fought and died. They stay wi’ ye though,” Jamie mused quietly. 

_ How it was they fought and died _ . It was similar in the battlefield hospitals when the wounded came flooding in. Some passed quickly, some peacefully, some fought for every breath, some cried and cursed in agony or fear. How they passed left an impression and some stayed with you longer. 

“There weren’t many chances for the soldiers to get that close,” she said again. “The ones that did were usually taking part in some kind of Commando Raid and those weren’t usually about killing or wounding the enemy. They were about getting something from them—intelligence, supplies, prisoners… Or destroying the supplies, disrupting the routes.”

“Commando Raid…” Jamie tasted the words while his brain turned them over. 

“Mmmhmm. Small teams of men,” Claire continued, pausing to yawn. “They’d go behind enemy lines to their camps or target their supply lines, transportation, that sort of thing. Blow something up, disable tanks and trucks if they had the time, eavesdrop if they could. Then they’d get out again as fast as they could, leave the enemy scrambling to fix things and generally slowing them down.”

“Commando Raid,” Jamie said again with greater amusement and satisfaction. “Ye’d have to ken where their camp was,” he reasoned. “And have a goal in mind.”

“Every mission must have a clear objective,” Claire agreed, yawning again and closing her eyes. “And a code name. Operation Chariot, Operation Dryad.”

“Hmmm,” Jamie murmured, his hand trailing up and down Claire’s back as she finally surrendered to sleep. He remained awake, alert. “Commando Raid…”


End file.
